


Early One Morning

by 1000excuses



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 17:55:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17411528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000excuses/pseuds/1000excuses
Summary: Flint's No-Good, Very Bad Morning. Charles helps.





	Early One Morning

The alarm on Flint’s side of the bed goes off at quarter to six like always. It’s Flint’s bed, in Flint’s house, but in the two months since Charles started sleeping in it regularly, he’s taken the left side, since Flint and Flint’s nightstand and Flint’s motherfucking claxon of an alarm clock are all on the right side. The alarm sounds for a good thirty seconds before a freckled arm reaches out from the nest of duvets and pillows that also resides on the right side of the bed and slaps the snooze button with malice aforethought. By that time Charles has his feet on the floor, though his eyes are still closed. He finds shirt and gym shorts by feel in the dark and pulls them on. His socks are in his running shoes by the front door, and ordinarily he’d be on his way to them already, but Flint’s nest is still dark and silent, having failed to erupt into an angry ginger and stalk to the shower yet. 

Charles rubs his eyes, which aren’t happy about being open, and watches the numbers flip over until the alarm goes off again. This time the slap to snooze it comes with instant, furious force. Flint is awake, and he’s not getting up. This is new. Wary, Charles rounds the bed and stands peering down at the layers of bedclothes under which the form of his lover is still silent. “Want me to start the water?” he asks after a long moment. 

There is no answer and no movement that Charles can see. In another minute the alarm will sound again, and so he reaches down to turn it off. Before he can find the button, though, vice-like fingers close around his wrist and pull it away. By reflex, Charles yanks away harder than he means to, but it does him no good. He’s prying Flint’s fingers off with his own when a muffled “Leave it,” comes from under the pillows squashed in the general vicinity of the head of the bed. 

Charles stops fighting, mostly out of shock. It’s the first time he’s ever heard Flint speak before he’s finished at least half of his coffee in the morning. It isn’t a heartening sound. He opens his mouth to say he’s not quite sure what, since he’s barely awake himself. “Go,” says Flint with as much menace as one syllable can carry. Charles flees.

Five miles later he’s back at the front door, trying the handle with trepidation. Usually he has to use his key to get in, since Flint has showered and left for the university, leaving a covered plate of eggs and bacon in the oven for Charles. But the door opens easily when he pushes: no one has been up to lock it.

He toes out of his shoes and pads through the dark, silent kitchen to the bedroom, flipping on both the kettle and the thermostat as he passes. The bed remains unmade and unempty. Charles stares at it for a long moment, wondering if discretion is the better part of valor here. He feels woefully inadequate, exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with short sleep or the run. To buy himself time, he heads to the shower, pitching his clothes into the hamper on the way. 

Flint does his laundry and leaves it folded for him on his side of the bed, something that never ceases to stun Charles each time it happens. No one in his memory has done that for him, not any of his foster parents before Teach, and certainly not the man himself. Eleanor used to leave her clothes where they fell, usually in a trail to the bedroom, and Charles would gather them up and wash them after she left. He still has a small scar from the first and only time he ever put a bra in the dryer. 

Charles washes himself and his hair quickly and dries off with the towel that has become his. He ties his damp hair up on top of his head and, steeling himself, returns to the bedroom. He climbs gingerly into his side of the bed.

“The fuck are you doing?” comes a wretched growl from Flint’s side. 

Charles can’t think of anything that won’t sound like pity, and so he stays quiet, rolling toward Flint until he can lie along his back and put an arm over his middle. Flint is shaking, a fine shiver running through him in endless waves. It’s not from cold, though. Most of the blankets in the bed are still piled on top of him. He’s not crying either. Charles thinks at first that he must be seething, furious at something unseen. He’s afraid for a brief moment and then his head clears. Flint puts his fists through walls, never through Charles. He takes walks. He doesn’t spread the pain. And now he’s not seething. 

Charles doesn’t know what he is doing, but he holds onto him while he does it, as time passes unheaded outside their burrow. After long, long moments Flint stills. “You’re going to be late for work,” he mutters, voice cracked and broken. 

“Saturday,” Charles says. “Stay here all weekend if you want.”

Flint huffs out a dry laugh. “In bed with you all weekend I’m not doing this.” He shifts, rolls to face Charles, and Charles moves just far enough away to let him. In the dim light seeping through the curtains, Flint’s face is creased and swollen, his eyes red, but he is there now, not far away in his mind. Charles closes the space between them to kiss him hard. Flint doesn’t react and then he does, groaning into it and tangling their tongues.

Charles feels him reach up and fumble to take down his hair, feels it fall damp over his shoulders, knows it will be a mess later, and for once doesn’t care. Flint cards his fingers through it over and over while Charles bends his head and allows it, mouthing at Flint’s chest and shoulders and pulling him close again.

“She would’ve loved your hair.” He feels the words more than hears them, Flint’s voice is so low and soft. “Thomas would’ve said it was ridiculous.” And now Charles has some idea what the matter is but still no idea of how to ask more, so instead he reaches down between them and strokes Flint’s hip and thigh, petting down over them. It’s what he can reach, and it seems more fitting than patting his back or his ass.

“You had a dream?” Charles knows the answer before he feels Flint’s nod, but that’s all he does. He doesn’t stiffen or pull away, for which Charles is grateful. He knows the important details about Flint’s spouses who are dead and a few of the trivial ones. He’s seen--though not set foot in--the study upstairs where Flint keeps their portrait and library.

“A good one.” Flint’s voice is stronger now, a little more even, though he still sounds bone weary. “All of us together, laughing in the sunlight.”

Charles can’t see them, but he can feel it, the three of them, like he’s looking in the window at them from outside. He’s so busy enjoying it that he almost doesn’t hear Flint say it again: “All of us.” He looks up from Flint’s shoulder, blinking, and Flint trails a thumb down his cheek and over his lips while Charles grins into the touch. He’s not standing outside the window anymore. 

“And then the fucking alarm-” he says, after he’s swallowed hard a few times.

“The fucking alarm clock,” Flint agrees.


End file.
